Outdated Paper Charts

[MDhillon]

Does anyone know where I can buy very cheap paper charts, even severely outdated ones if they are significantly cheaper, as the charts are going to be used for planning purposes and specific shoal locations etc. is not of much importance. I would opt for a world atlas as a cheap alternative but want the map to have accurate scales for distance calcs. If anybody is updating their inventory and is getting rid of any, it would be greatly apprecciated

[Livia]

What areas are you looking for?

[Scare_Rab]

you do not HAVE to have to have a chart to "measure" distance:

Celestial Navigation Basics
Distance and bearing between 2 points on earth

Suppose you are at point "A", latA and longA being the latitude and longitude of A, and you want to know how far point B is ( latB, longB ). The distance in Nautical miles is:
And the bearing angle of B as seen from A is given by:
Now this formula, I have never seen in any book, what I have seen is an ACOS function of the azimuth. But in my view an ATAN function is preferable as it at least gives you the correct direction. OK so you might end up travelling in the opposite direction and circle the great circle from the long side rather than the short one, but at least you will arrive at B eventually. With the ACOS formula, it is possible to pick the wrong great circle (the one with the symmetrical azimuth) . If you do, you'll never ever meet B.


These 2 formulas can come in pretty handy also if you want to erect the tourist direction pointers which have about 50 indicators mounted on a post, all pointing in a different direction, and reading: "New-York 4622 miles", "Tokyo 2473 miles", etc.., your signs will point to the right directions and have the correct distances (at least they will before vandals come and rearrange the lot).

[svHyLyte]

Most Marine Consignment shops have piles of old charts that are very inexpensive. One near us sells them for $.50 USD a piece. If one has the patience, on can use the notices to mariners to up-date these pretty well. As an alternative to the NTM, one can go to Maritime Safety Information and down-load current up-to-date charts..

FWIW...

[zeehag]

what is considered to be an updated chart?? is it 1865 or have charts been updated since then?? or is it the mess we make on them is considered updating?? please advise--i havent been able to find any newer then 1865......lol....i know they are printed every so often, but they all still say 1865 on them, unless there has been a mysterious update made recently?????

i know google earth has a measuring tool on their site--i have also found noaa charts that can be placed over google earth--but i thought they also said last update 1865....

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by zeehag

What is considered to be an updated chart? Is it 1865, or have charts been updated since then? Or is it the mess we make on them is considered updating?

An updated chart is a "current" (within 1 year) edition.
Charts have been constantly updated since the original ninteenth century surveys.
The mess we make on them is also considered updating.

Survey vs Edition dates:

The mandate to create nautical charts of the American coasts dates back to 1807, when U.S. President Thomas Jefferson ordered a survey of the nation's coast. The Organic Act of 1807 authorized the newly formed coastal survey agency, then called the U.S. Coast Survey, to construct and maintain the nation's nautical charts.

All current charts are based upon these original nineteenth century surveys, but have been constantly updated.

Any paper chart that has an edition date, one year prior to the purchase date, is quite likely to have had important new changes affecting the chart published in the USCG LNM, NGA NM, or the Canadian Coast Guard NM. It is imperative that these changes be applied to the chart so the chart can be brought up to date.

Mariners using traditional paper charts apply chart corrections manually by using pencils, erasers, rulers, compasses, dividers, and protractors. Applying updates to a suite of paper charts can be time consuming, tedious, and error prone.

Accordingly, NOAA has developed a paper product that addresses the problem of manual updates to paper charts. A Print on Demand (POD) chart is a “current edition” paper chart, that is printed at the time of purchase; and contains chart updates accurate up until the time of purchase.

[saltybot]

You could try a program called Visual Passage Planner